Government ramps up infrastructure spending in September

MANILA, Philippines — The government ramped up its infrastructure spending by nearly 17 percent in September amid higher disbursements for road projects, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.

Based on the latest national government disbursement performance report of the DBM, state infrastructure expenditure and other capital outlays climbed by 16.9 percent to P137.1 billion in September from P117.3 billion a year ago.

The DBM attributed the infrastructure spending performance in September to the higher disbursements recorded by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

The government also implemented various foreign-assisted projects of the Department of Transportation and capital outlay projects of the Department of National Defense (DND).

Infrastructure spending also grew due to the construction, repair and rehabilitation of justice halls nationwide under the Justice System Infrastructure Program of the Department of Justice.

The Department of Education also implemented its computerization program, which provides computer laboratory packages to secondary schools and e-classrooms to elementary schools.

Meanwhile, overall infrastructure spending for the nine-month period reached P982.4 billion, rising by 14.6 percent from the P857.6 billion in the same period last year.

The DBM said the robust infrastructure spending growth for the period was largely due to significant disbursements of the DPWH for its banner infrastructure projects and the DND’s defense modernization projects.

Overall government spending for September increased by 13.1 percent to P572.9 billion from P506.3 billion a year ago.

Apart from infrastructure, personnel services expenditures rose by 20.5 percent to P143.7 billion due to the first tranche of salary adjustments of qualified government employees under Executive Order 64.

The government also recorded higher maintenance and other operating expenses at P106.9 billion amid the settlement of arrears for the Public Health Emergency Benefits Allowance of non-plantilla healthcare workers under the Department of Health.

Interest payments also increased by 3.4 percent to P73.9 billion due to the timing of payments for fixed rate treasury bonds.

Other factors include higher Treasury bill rates, servicing of new external loans and the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations.

Combined allotment and capital transfers to local government units inched up by two percent to P82.5 billion on higher national tax allotment and annual block grant.

On the other hand, subsidy support to government corporations dropped by 14.3 percent to P18.2 billion due to the huge subsidy releases in September last year.